Welcome back to The Workweek, the Indeed Hiring Lab’s round-up of the latest research, news, and perspectives that made us think deeply or differently about the labor market this week. It’s your guide to the most important new insights about work.
Here are our picks for this week:
How Many Jobs Do We Need?
Since 2012, the headline number in the monthly jobs report — the change in payroll employment — has typically been over 200,000. But that won’t last. The slowdown in the growth of the working-age population means we’ll need fewer new jobs to keep the labor market steady. A new analysis suggests that 57,000 jobs per month could be the new normal. (San Francisco Fed)
Mobile Americans — and Finns and Norwegians
Americans move less than they used to, but still more than pretty much everyone else. People in Finland and Norway also move often. Mobility rates for other Europeans are much lower. One possible reason for the difference between the US and Europe: longer-distance moves tend to be work related, and the U.S. has — as the writer puts it — a “fixation with work.” (The Atlantic)
Record-Setting Wages
A good-news data snippet: Adjusted for inflation, the earnings of full-time workers in the U.S. are at an all-time high. Both rising wages and lower inflation have helped. (Vox)
Eager Retailers
Long before holiday lights go up and Christmas music is playing everywhere, retailers start looking for seasonal workers. This year, retailers got started especially early: Indeed’s own data show that retailers started posting seasonal jobs in early August this year, a full month ahead of the trend in 2013. (WSJ)
Germany in the Lead
How does the jobs recovery compare across the big seven global economies? One of our favorite measures of labor-market health — the share of working-age adults who are employed — reveals that Germany has seen the biggest increase, followed by the U.K. The U.S. ranks fifth among these seven, making it a “global laggard.” (Bloomberg View)
Lastly, here’s a new book of essays about the labor market, covering key policy issues. Full disclosure: we haven’t read it yet, but what really caught our eye is that there are two essays with differing viewpoints on each topic. It’s the hyper-wonky debate about the labor market that we wished had been part of the presidential campaign.
